Review: Chris Ethan – Jingle Spell

Summary: It’s the most horrible time of the year.
Smooches under mistletoes and tacky reindeer decorations.
Newly single, Davey has had enough of wasting his love and having his heart broken. Better to be single, he decides. No more dates. No more falling in love. No more dreaming of happy ever afters. Those are for movies.
He’s resolute.
And then Avery steps into his life, bringing care, compassion, and tenderness in his path.
Davey’s so tempted to hope again. But can an online date and a brief encounter turn into anything other than an ephemeral sexual encounter?
Is there a future for them? Will Avery stay? And most importantly, can Davey bear to offer up his heart to the season’s love—just one more time?

Review: Davey doesn’t hate Christmas time. It’s just not a great time for him. He is lying next to his boyfriend and catches him on Grindr, causing an early morning breakup. Now he has to deal with stupidity of the season at the mall while also dealing with a bitter boss. “He hated feeling like this, being so unlike himself, but he couldn’t help it. His soul was black and his mood was blue.” You feel for him. “All he wanted was a guy who could stay in a relationship with him for more than two months. It wasn’t too much to ask, yet so impossible to attain. In the six years since he’d come of age and out of the closet his most notable partnership had lasted five weeks and ended over what else? A text message.”

A customer with sad grey eyes and a sprinkle of salt-and-pepper hair buying a beautiful scarf makes the day a little brighter, even if said man doesn’t ask Davey out. A night out is what he needs, so off to Grindr he goes, where he talks with a sweet man named Avery, who of course is the scarf man and they make a date.

Davey really is pretty needy. He has a pretty terrible past and he’s always trying to make the next guy THE guy, which doesn’t usually work. But this time it just might be the right man as they get to know each other (and sort of have an insta-love going on). Up until this point, the book was a 4 for me because I liked both Davey and Avery and I appreciated how they were getting to know each other. Then a blast from Avery’s past shows up and his response to Davey left me cold. I lost respect for him and at that point, Davey was so low I just wanted him to find someone else. “Just his damn luck. Alone and battered, yet again.” I think it bothered me because Avery came across as so much younger and immature than he was supposed to be and had been up to that point.

So this is a sweet holiday story with two lonely men who find each other.